Romanian Journal of English Studies

ROMANIAN JOURNAL OF ENGLISH STUDIES Editura Universităţii de Vest Timişoara This journal is sponsored by: Universitatea de Vest, Timişoara Office of Public Affairs, US Embassy, Bucharest © Romanian Journal of English Studies, no.6, 2009 ISSN 1584-3734 1 EDITOR Luminiţa Frenţiu Assistant editors Eliza Filimon Aba – Carina Pârlog ADVISORY BOARD HORTENSIA PÂRLOG, University of Timişoara PIA BRÎNZEU, University of Timişoara CARMELLO CUNCHILLOS JAIME, University de La Rioja MIHAELA IRIMIA ANGHELESCU, University of Bucureşti MIRCEA MIHAIEŞ, University of Timişoara ISABELLE SCHWARTZ – GASTINE, University of Caen DAVID SNELLING, University of Trieste CHRISTO STAMENOV, University of Sofia MIHAI ZDRENGHEA, University of Cluj-Napoca SECTION ONE: CULTURAL STUDIES 2 PUPPETS ON STRINGS: HOW AMERICAN MASS MEDIA MANIPULATED BRITISH COMMERCIAL RADIO BROADCASTING ERIC GILDER University of Sibiu MERVYN HAGGER John Lilburne Research Institute (for Constitutional Studies) USA Abstract: The article demonstrates how the American mass-media system manipulated British off-shore commercial radio from 1964 to 1967, in link with dissent elements within the British Establishment. This demonstration undermines the popular re-rendering of the “radio pirates” as rebels against the Establishment, and shows thereby that cultural change requires dominant-interest collaboration to be effective. Keywords: British off-shore radio; Miller, Beatrix; Queen magazine; Stevens, Jocelyn; Radio Caroline “I may win on the roundabout, then I’ll lose on the swings, in or out, there is never a doubt, just who’s pulling the strings, I’m all tied up in you, but where’s it leading me to?” Sandie Shaw’s winning performance of Puppet on a String at the 1967 Eurovision Song Contest (Puppet) - could have been a lyrical description of British commercial radio broadcasting during the nineteen-sixties under manipulation by American interests. (Gilder 2003: 69) Beginning in 1964 the staid domestic daytime radio airwaves of the British Broadcasting Corporation were continually joined by commercial programs beamed from transmitters located in international waters. The origin of these broadcasts began in the editorial offices of an Establishment magazine in London owned by a member of the younger set within British Establishment itself, albeit to be later tied in to an often-uncontrollable alliance with external American partners. (Gilder and Hagger, 1965: 214) Challenging the BBC radio monopoly Almost since the birth of broadcasting in Britain, the American advertising agency J. Walter Thompson (JWT) has had an interest in sponsored broadcasting capable of reaching British ears and eyes. (Wilson, 1961: 135) By 1954, under pressure from a lobby with assistance of JWT, (ibid: 52) a Television Act had introduced licensed British commercial television stations with limitations. (ibid: 191n) and leaving active, a commercial radio pressure group. 3 Brash young giant Following the debacle of the Suez Crisis in 1956 in which a rift developed between UK and USA, the younger generation within the British Establishment began to denounce the older generation in a rising crescendo of satire and criticism via the stage and television and print media. (The Queen: August 30, 1961: 118) By 1962 the media doyen of British publishing giving aid and comfort to critics was 30 years old Jocelyn Stevens, headlined by Time magazine as a “Brash Young Giant” (02-23-1962: Online). Time described him as being “fresh out of Cambridge in 1955” and thanks to “a background of wealth and all the right schools” he “had access to the highest palace circles”. Stevens was “blond and dashing ... throwing lavish soirees and slewing recklessly about in one Aston Martin after another ...” Then Stevens did an about face “(s)uddenly ashamed of his playboy past, he toured newspaper libraries, surreptitiously destroying all unflattering clips about himself.” This change seems to have been brought about by his interest in the woman he married and perhaps by pressure from his wealthy uncle, publisher Sir Edward Hulton. Stevens enrolled in London's School of Printing and Graphic Arts where he “crammed a three-year course into twelve months.” When Sir Edward closed down Picture Post magazine in 1957, Stevens was 25. On February 14 he bought the Ladies' Newspaper and Court Chronicle that first saw light of day in 1861 with the blessing of Queen Victoria. Until 1962 it became known as The Queen magazine (Coleridge: 6) where over the years “Hitler is praised for his kindness to animals, pneumatic tyres are dismissed as a passing fad, jazz is written off as a temporary craze.” (Crewe: 1961: 8) Stevens brought the same kind of screeching halt to that editorial approach that he had previously practiced when driving his Aston Martin. In an interview with the Observer in 2006, (02-12-2006: Online) Stevens, by then Sir Jocelyn, said that in those early days he had come to the conclusion that he wanted to destroy society with his new magazine. He was asked why? His reply: “it was embarrassing!” He was again asked why? He replied: “Suez! Our fathers had no balls. They couldn’t even pull off a little thing like that!” In the autumn of 1957, Stevens recruited Beatrix Miller as editor and it would be her job to actually transform the magazine. Miller had previously been employed by Vogue in New York where she would return as editor at the end of 1963. (Coleridge: 9) Beatrix Miller Miller is described by Liz Tilberis (1998) in her book No Time To Die as an “upright, elegant, and formidable editor-in-chief ... She was a 4 woman devoted to her career, with no mention of a significant other.” Beatrix Miller “staged revolutions” wrote Tilberis when she later worked with her after Miller had left Queen: “She’d stride down the corridor, hands on hips, pointing and declaring, ‘Today is a revolution.’ She would change all sections of the magazine, or all the layouts, or all the models, just to shake everyone up ... She derived great glee from doing it, with a lovely smile on her face.” (76 supra) Stevens and Miller had an ad hoc methodology for editing Queen. When a young Mary Quant came into the editorial offices with a box of her own photographs featuring fashions she had created (which other fashion magazine publishers had dismissed), Stevens and Miller featured them and launched both Ms. Quant’s career and the miniskirt fashion icon of the 1960s. (Observer Online: February 12, 2006) Stevens also brought Queen into closer contact with Princess Margaret when he hired her husband Antony Armstrong-Jones (Lord Snowdon) as a photographer. He retained Robin Douglas-Home, nephew of the Prime Minister and elder brother of the editor of The [London] Times. Robin Douglas-Home established personal literary relationships with both Frank Sinatra and Jacqueline Kennedy before and after the assassination of the president, and in 1965 he engaged in a romance with Princess Margaret. Stevens’ magazine was run in a petulant manner where psychoanalysis could have been the required order of the day. When Jocelyn Stevens fired his Fashion Editor she threw her typewriter out of the window causing it to splatter upon hitting the ground. He heard the noise and decided to join her in throwing everything else out of her office window, and when they had finished, they both sat on the carpet for a rest. (ibid) Her name is Caroline Miller had the peculiar habit of naming things and this made an impression upon Liz Tilberis. “Miss Miller had nicknames for people and inanimate objects.” She called the British edition of Vogue magazine “Brogue” and her white Jaguar car she called “Arctic”. (Tilberis, 1998: 77) When Time magazine covered the rise of Stevens in 1962, it claimed that he had, converted Queen into a magazine for “Caroline,” an imaginary young woman whom he conceives of as his audience: An ambitious, intelligent bachelor girl—or the same girl married to a young executive on the way up—who wants all the material things in life. To reach Caroline and her husband, Stevens filled his magazine with avant-garde photographs ...and appealed shrewdly to the intellectual and social interests of the smart crowd. (“Brash Young Giant”) 5 Upon turning the pages of Queen, readers discovered both published output in conformity with the “Caroline” style-sheet, and the name “Caroline” in big headlines: “A Christmas present for Caroline: The Queen.” (The Queen: Christmas Edition 1961) No other explanation is offered as to who Caroline is, but as Time reported in 1962, “Caroline” was at that time the name of the theme. With the passage of time, obfuscation has taken over. On February 12, 2006, Clement Freud, the grandson of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and brother of artist Lucian Freud, told the Observer that: Beatrix’s idea was: ‘This is Caroline’. Look at her carefully and don’t ever write anything Caroline wouldn’t understand. Caroline was the sort of person one ended up in bed with. Caroline had fair long hair, and went to school and thought ’16 and out!’ – of school that is.” (The Observer 12 February, 2006). In 1962 Time had reported that Beatrix’s Caroline was a stereotypical successful woman who could be married to a stereotypical successful man, while Clement Freud claimed in 2006 that Beatrix’s Caroline was an air- headed teenager. Clearly Queen magazine was intended to reach the former, not latter reader, but Freud often contributed to Queen as a jester using the pen name of “Mr. Smith” (Coleridge: 6). However, in 1962 there was a real ‘Caroline’, sixteen years-of-age, who seems to fit the description given by Clement Freud in 2006. From July 1962 until October 1964, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (under both Prime Ministers Harold MacMillan and Sir Alec Douglas-Home) was Conservative Member of Parliament Reginald Maudling, who resided at his official home of 11 Downing Street.

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